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To Gain From Free Market
Reforms, You Have to Do Them

By

Juan Andres Fontaine

Updated Nov. 8, 2002 12:49 a.m. ET

After dropping by 9% during the 1980s, Latin America's per capita income was expected to recover strongly in the 1990s under a market-based economic strategy called the Washington consensus. Instead, it is now at about the same level it was 22 years ago.

The Argentine collapse best illustrates the failure. Yet disappointment in the promises of the Washington consensus goes beyond Argentina. Lula da Silva's victory in Brazil may mean the end of that country's half-baked attempts at market reforms. Mexico's prospects look a bit...